Sunday, February 14, 2016

The JNU students have been picketing for a long time, collectively with other unions. The corporatisation of education has been their greatest anguish. Now the caste oriented politics of the BJP has made things so much worse. Why is it that the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was picked up with out a warrant? The JNUTA is completely stunned, because the young man neither shouted antinational slogans, nor did he support Kashmiri selfdeterminism. The discussion on capital punishment has been going on for very long in human right protection circles. Quite often, people come to JNU canvassing for the rights of prisoners. Now, we are told that Kanhaiya has been placed in the Terrorist Cell in R.K. Puram. We hope that he can be returned to us at the earliest, as there is no reason for him to be put in jail.
When there are disturbances on campus, because of volatile groups of politically committed students, and the far right and the extreme left are always looking for occassions to be at each other's throats, the presence of teachers calms things down. This time, the VC was new, and the acting registrar Bhupinder Zutshi did not recommend to him that the proctor's committees be activated. We are all shocked by Zutshi's action, which was to give a list of previously prepared students' names to the police, and that the VC was advised to let the police enter the campus was most reprehensible.
Students in JNU have had a long tradition of training as grass roots intellectuals. They keep an inventory of deficits both institutional and national. They know that they are responsible for the smooth running of the institution they study in. We as teachers have always respected them, and learned from them. The mutual love we have for our students and their ideas, and the respect they have for us is now almost fifty years old. It's tragic that the press barons, who have no respect for the poor and the genius among them, should have used their agents to misrepresent JNU. The segmentalised and aggressive way in which the press manipulated their cameras and showed teachers and students of JNU to be antinational is most unseemly. We can only imagine that they are ideologically or otherwise implicated in capitalism and caste orientations.
Rohith Vemula's death was something that the students were deeply grieved by. His suicide note was a classic example of the genius of the young that I have already stated as characteristic of the Marxist Ambedkarite vision. It is this that the right wing cadres are keen to damage.
The human chain four kms long, held in friendship and love to uphold the great struggle that the JNU community sees as lying ahead of it is a good omen of the self respect and the optimism that we feel.

To kill the spirit of the rural intelligentsia is not so easy. They are learned, wise, and practical. They will show India, that learning is something which opens up the path to greater achievements. Today, they organised the crowd gathering perfectly, without a single moment of anxiety for JNUTA, who participated to support the students. On 13th February, when ABVP members, none of them recognisable as JNU students, tried to harass 3000 students gathered together, the JNU students were completely calmed and restrained. Yesterday, 13th February 2016, we felt we were sitting on a time bomb, which would go off, as the university became a site for visitors who came to support the JNUSU, and the lumpen elements posing as ABVP students moved around freely. On 14th February 2016, with the peace march around JNU campus, we felt our own sense of integrity and camaraderie. The FEDCUTA President, JNU President, Ambedkar University representatives all communicated their sense of belonging to an India which is democratic, dialogic and continuously open to the questions of freedom and identity. To lock up a young man on the bases of his official post, as responsible for slogan shouting by anonymous members of the crowd, seeking to create fissures in the community, is totally illogical.

On 15th February, 2016, some of the Professors, including myself, Chitra Harshvardhan, Neera
Kongari, Nivedita Menon, Madhu Sahni, Ayesha Kidwai and Janki Nair, accompanied by
some men faculty went to Court number 4, gate number 2, Patiala House, to be
there for JNUSU president when he was produced before the judge. We were first
ushered into the room, and settled in, and after twenty minutes, around ten minutes
to 2 pm, when the hearing was to begin, we were crowded in by RSS lawyers, who
shouted at us, and pushed us around, and said we were to leave. The police
thencordoned the women professors and
took them up staircases and down different ones, saying that they were
protecting us from the RSS activists. They were very concerned, and wanted to
communicate that they had our best interests while ushering us along a warren
of rooms and steps.
The polarisation of JNU, and its breakdown has begun. It is immensely
frightening, since the secular and the religious are now confrontational. The
karamchari union took out a march on 15th Februaryat 11 a.moutside administration. I heard a woman clerk at the meeting say, “First, we will identify
the students who are anti-national, then all the teachers.” On 14thFebruary,
when the journalists asked us “What are your opinions about being called
antinational?” The hundreds of teachers who were assembled laughed.After today, and the expressive and fearsome
RSS response, it does not seem funny anymore. The young boy who stood up for
the rights of the poor to study and to be liberated will have us always as his
Brechtian mothers, for us he is of the earth, and will be blessed for his
courage.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Settler communities face difficulties primarily because they
are always treated as poor, incontinuous states of servitude, and called into the arena of wage
labour, because of the needs of the State. The first impression we get off the
islands, is that of an austerity, calm, and of an inviolable beauty. The
Disaster Management team from Centre for Law and Governance, JNU, had a
minimalist agenda, which was to discover whether the communities who live
onthose islands have benefitted from the
Relief Programmes of the Government. When cyclone Aliya, (or Ayla, as the people call it,) arrived,
the people were completely unprepared. The Government officials told us in
Calcutta, that they could not give 48 hours warning because the storm suddenly
turned it’s path, and hit the Sundarbans. The odd thing about this conclusion
is, that the local people communicated thatthe weather forecasting satellites work better for Bangladesh, as they
have quicker responses to the disaster, and evacuation is speedier. For
themselves, they moved to higher land, and waded out with their children, when
the water had reached chest deep. They had no idea that the storm would strike
so murderously, as they are used to storms, and live with them. The officials
say that the lack of preparedness made them create certain resources, including
a disaster shelter which includes 1000 to 2000 people. There are 4700 families
on the island of Bali. The shelter, as we saw it,however, was not at all well maintained, and
actually was used for storing some metal water pipes, and also doubled as a
barat ghar, or community hall used for marriages. The problem with its non
maintained aspect, is that in the tropical climate, it can rot, if left in the
condition it is now.

Subsistence societies are essentially existentialist. The
Panchayat members are very clear that the money reached them, and they used it
to good effect. Their rice storage and hay stacks have been lifted by four
inches for instance, clay and sludge brought in by the 2009 storm has been used
for creating embankments, by the simple principle of filling the sacks with
this mix, and then parking it on the earlier embankments. It dries and becomes
a type of local cement. The assumption is that these simple measures will keep the
water out. In truth, the people live simple lives working very hard to sustain
their rural economy by farming, fishing, and keeping of cattle. The children
are educated in a voluntary school run by an NGO which also has a guest house
for their officials. There is an internet college run by Prasanjeeth Mandal,
who is a lawyer trained in Calcutta, with a B.A in English Literature, and also
has Panchayat responsibilities. He returned to Bali to look after his parents,
as they are now old. His Panchayat membership allows him to play an active role
in local politics, and to mediate with visitors. His father’s farm, which he
manages, grows the things his family needs.Rice, vegetables, like cauliflower and beans, fruit like guavas and
bannanas, and the new cash crop, green chillies. He also grows flowers for the
market. Part of the problem that they have encountered is still experiential,
terrifying, and much of how they think of the past and future, both of which
are still represented as coterminous, is coloured by these memories. Fear is
something they live with. Several people in the islands work as manual labour
in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Some of the elderly men on the island, have travelled
to Kerala to see their sons at their workplace. One man stoodproudly against the electric pole, a cement
pillar, and said “By this pole I can talk to my son.” His deep belief in the
magic of the mobile was to assert it’s efficacy. They do not feel that they are
isolated, because they are connected.

Farming is sufficient to give them a good life. It is
interesting that organic farming is seen as a way by which vegetables can reach
Malancha, a nearby town, which is three hours by ferry and two hours by bus,
away. The hybrid tomatoes and the large sized vegetables were a testimony to
the farmer, stating that he only used “waste” from his fields to cultivate.
Other farmers, like Prasanjeeth Mandal, use urea as well. The basic assumption
is that “if they work very hard, they can eat”, an aphorism that I have heard
fromfarmers elsewhere. The organic
farmer thus believes that this abilityto work hard is his characteristic, to feedthe family, to be able to hold the property
together. Unfortunately, the BPL card is only available to farmers with
certified landholdings. Theorganic
farmerwhom our team spoke to, has land
which belonged to a man from Midnapore, who after Ayla does not want to utilize his property, so now it is in the
hands of the workers. They own it, but though it is a gift, it is worthless,
because they cannot prove that they own it. Bureaucracy being what it is, the
complexity of paper work is difficult for these previously landlessfarmers to handle.

At night there is no electricity, there is fear of the Royal
Bengal Tiger, who does not discriminate between deer and humans. The waters
connecting the islands are crocodile infested. The boat only comes during fixed
hours. There is no hospital or police station. Trafficking and alcohol abuse
are known crimes, and in case of rape, the immediate punishment is to kill the
rapist, using the common sickle to severe the neck, according to an informant.

The sense that here are people left to themselves to live or
die, is mitigated by the self assurance that they communicate, which is of the
essence of being human. They are connected to one another, they have all the
values of being alert to one another. The sense of love for the land, and the
beauty of the landscape is immediate. It is possible only because the
inhabitants feels responsible for what they have. We must remember thatonly 200 families left Bali for good, after Ayla. They believed that they could
continue to live on the island, inspite of the terribleenvironmental disturbance.

The Government response was immediate. The IAS officer in
charge of relief operations was told that rice should be immediately provided
to all families, and no one should go hungry. What is missing however is the
training for immediate response, should another storm arise. The people have
not developed their ‘best practice’ for this event. There is no leader, or
community management for drill for evacuation.

The resourcesfor
survival and sustenance remain simple and private. The rich alluvial silt the
storm left behind has made the fields more fertile. Dr Sajjal Baruah, a veterinary
doctor who has decided to settle in Bali came in as a wildlife photographer. He
then bought land, has set up four rooms, two for himself and his wife, and his
mother, and two for guests. He believes eco tourism is viable in Bali, and that
people will come to this remote island for the pleasure of living in pristine
and primeval conditions. Dr Sajjal tells our team that when he came as a
photographer, to the specific place he now farms, he set up a tent, and slept
there, and at night the tiger came and prowled around, had never seen a tent,
and lay down beside him. As legends go, it would seem that those who truly
respect the wild, have no enemies among the animals. As an organic farmer he
has already established the vegetable gardens he will need for his commercial
venture. When we think of tourism, there are many questions that we have to be
attuned to. One is the problem of regulation of numbers. The second is the
question of disposal of garbage. The thirdrefers to how natural resources may be used in ahabitation by people who bring with them
their specific needs for food, toilets, and luxury goods. All three are
related.

Organic farming is essentially tuned to family needs, and
has been a parallel ecological practice for decades. Once it becomes
commericialised a fresh set of problematics remain, which have been
successfully handled by Kerala government. These include training of
housewives, children and retired people, to practice farming as a vocation
rather than being dependent on the market. In Bali this will be easy to do, as
there are key agents, such a “labour class” (as they proudly refer to
themselves,) who have returned to Bali, andwho will have already had an experience of thesuccessful Kerala experiment. It involves
agricultural scientists providing Bali residents with seeds generated as
natural, or hybrid, (but not gmt seeds), and then proliferating the gardens
with local horticulturally managed produce for the family and tourists. Those
farmers who are able to have greater success than others should receive state
recognition. There should be outlets where the vegetables and fruits grown by
organic farmers can be sold to other residents and tourists, in such a way that
there is mutual benefit. The simplicity of the exercise lies in the dependence
of state and people to each other. The poverty of the migrant to Kerala, who
live in terrible circumstances all over Kerala, and aresocially reviled for being lower class, is
actually contrasted to the very good living conditions in an unpolluted
environment.

Sundarbans is the
delta which has been for four thousand years known for it’s fertility,
constantly in the making. Tribal people from Chota Nagpur were settled here,
for clearing of the mangroves by the colonial state, and by wealthy Bengali
landlords in the 1920s and 1930s. Now, densely populated as it is, the primary
need is for replanting the mangroves, so that the land is anchored, and the
significant ways by which the State can better the life of these frugal
horticulturists and fishers. Every house has a tank outside it. The cleanness
of these tanks says a lot about how people who live here, respect the water.
Alsa alsa, afern like moss,grows on many of them, providing resource for
fish farmers, and prawn cultivators. The spawn for fish farms is madeeasily availableby local co-operatives, in fact showing inter
state collaboration, and is an important sourcefor fish for the Calcutta restaurants. However, the encroachment into
the mangroves remains a serious problem. As often as the mangroves are
depleted, the higher the statistic for cyclone and storms which can kill people
and dissolve the land. The water, according to Panchayat members is two feet
higher than it was previously at the embankments. The rise of the sea, due to
global warming, is because of climate change. In so many terrains with seismic
zone warnings, such as New Delhi, for instance, people know that they live with
risk, but do not leave, because their families and their livelihood is present.
It is the same with horticulturists in Ladakh who grow fruit and vegetables,
they do not expect to die because of natural calamity. That is the optimism of
human life, people just do not expect terrible things to happen them. Disaster
preparedness is thus the paramount need, and the training for survival has to
start very early, with schooling itself. The Japanese case of rigour and calm
is the best aspect of preparedness. As one Japanese delegate at the Napsig
conference, in JNU in 2015 said to me, “We are trained very early to know that
there may be earthquakes.” At the same conference, a Japanese psychiatrist and
his team,showed a film which showed how
they had trained a team ofvisually
challenged, orthopedically challenged, and mentally challenged patients in a hospice
to climb a mountain at a very fast pace, over four years, not anticipating an
earthquake, but preparing for one. When the earthquake did strike, it was these
challenged patients who led the entire village to safety.

In an interesting preliminary discussion with the conference
team, Anurag Danda of the WWF said that he had worked as a team leader for his
organization in Sundarbans for seventeen years. He said,

“Community resilience
is a challenge. Basanti has a density of 18,000 people per square kilometres.
It has no forest dwellers, no one lives inside the forests. The settlements we
see today, arethought to be from 1905.
The delta was still building, when in the 1700s there was an earthquake, which
shifted the mass, which tilted eastwards. Settlement was being encouraged by
the British, and the result was Henkelganj, where people began to grow rice. In
the 1830s,Zamindars were encroaching,
and Dampier Hodges line was established. Refugees from East Bengal wereasked to settle, but then they had to clear
out because of the Royal Bengal Tiger. None of the settlers are indigenous.
Indigenous populations tend to have an understanding of the place they inhabit.
The stable population, as it exists now, is from the 1970s. They don’t have the
benefit of Forest Rights Act. The tribals are from Chotta Nagpur, Santhals and
Orans who werecalled in to clear
forests and build embankments in Sanjakhaliand Bali, both of which are Tiger conservation sites, with their
lodgings for government officials and tourists.

At the moment, electricity and communicationsdon’t exist in Bali. So some options are not
available to them. As they are migrants, they brought with them their
traditional practices.Rainfed
agriculture means that they only have one crop, rice, at the mercy of the
season. If the embankment is breached then the saline water rushes in. If there
is a depression, then the standing crop falls. These people are trying to do
agriculture when the land is not fit for agriculture, given the variability of the
seasons, and the possibility of flooding. It is highly risky. Their literacy
rates are high, and there is therefore, the possibility that skill development
may lead to higher employability. Can we think of bringing land in cultivation
for a second crop? Cyclone Ayla is a
marker. However, November, December, January are not cyclone months. Cyclone Ayla coincided with high tide. By
itself, it was not a very dangerous weather event. Agriculture must be related
to Energy production and utilization, and to sustainable development. Twenty
percent of Sunderbans is devoted to agriculture, and consists of 2.9 lakh
hectare. Loss of 25,000 hectares occurred through submersion, or erosion.
Forested islands have become half of what it was. It is locking down people in
places. Mohsin has 30,000 sq kms, and it has a population of 29,000 people per
square km. People can’t go away, and they can’t sell it, because the land value
is lower than the price fixed by the government as the buying price. Land
acquisition, therefore, is possible. Sunderbans is a remittance economy.
Conspicuous goods, like mobile phones, maybe seen routinely now. Little
children, old people, and women are left behind. The women are expected to
cope.

In Kosaba, there isone police station, one Co-0perative, (the first in the country) one
college. Tagore visited Kosaba in 1901. Saagar and Kosaba are not connected by
bridges.It has a micro-grid. It’s lines
are 11 kilo watts. Its saw mills, zerox shop and ice factory are dependent on
generators. From 25th December to 1st of January, the
number of picnickers are higher than Corbett. There is no access to the forest.
Bali has included a village as part of its tourism project. There are 46
revenue villages in the forest, out of 1,100 villages. South of Bali a new
island has come out, but it cannot be occupied.

While it could be
presumed that those who have lived in forests for 75 years can benefit from
Forest Act, Sundarbans is an exception. In 1865, it was declared reserved, when
it was not inhabited. Human habitation in the marshes has meant that the people
are drinking ground water. In Kosaba, it is pumped up from 1800 feet, or 2200
feet. It is pumped for people twice a day, and networked, and is uncontaminated
water, free from arsenic.”

Prasanjeet Mandal is a Panchayat Member in Bali. He has a
B.A in English, and an LLB from Calcutta University. He said,

“When the flood came, no one knew. After 10 pm, everyone
left their home, and went to the school. They freed their animals. Out of 4025
houses, 3000 houses were flooded. All the animals died. Now, there is some
advance warning. The whole day, when Ayla
struck we went hungry. The Left Front and Buddhadev Bhattacharya were in power.
Bhattacharya said, “There would be no shortage of cereal,”but water was not available, it came from
outside. There were many NGOs that came from outside. All the ponds were
flooded with salt water. People returned to their homes, after the storm. But
there were no houses. The Government supplied tarpaulin. Chief Minister Bhattacharya
came by boat and reassured us. But while ration was made available, the extra
that was required was not available. And there was no facility for cooking.
Community kitchen was started by the local MLA, who was an opposition party
member. It was started ten days later. They received roasted rice and biscuits,
and jaggery. The children got Amul powder. “

Prasanjeet grows vegetables and flowers for the market.
There are no hospitals and medical treatment, and people depend on local
remedies and quacks. On 20.1.16 a ten bed hospital was promised by the
MLA.Prasenjeeth said in a meeting
initiated at Bali’s panchayat office, by Prof Amita Singh,

“Water flowed backwards after the Ayla. It took a month for things to normalize, as saline water
flooded the land. People migrated to Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and Andhra. The
women stayed, often with their parents. Diarrhea prevailed, and people suffered
snakebites as well. Saline water was washed away with the monsoon. The seed
crops were lost in the monsoon, but the Government helped in providing new seed
beds. The composition of the families in terms of caste is 400 families in the
general category, 500 are OBC, 2000 are SC, 500 are ST, and 400 are minority.”

The Panchayat office is well organized, and names of the
members and their telephone numbers are visibly displayed. The files are
maintained on the net, and all information can be received easily.

Panchayat member Pranoy Janak said, “When the NGOs would
come to the jetty, all the people would reach the jetty. Later the Government
came, and gave 10,000 per month to the family, and16 kgs of rice at the rate of RS 2 per
family, which continues even today. First the water was continually pushing the
bank. When the Ayla came, it burst
the banks and the tanks were overfilled. The huge field was filled, but as the
tanks were empty at that time the water went there. Poisonous snakes went away
at that time, so the people were saved. Two deer cubs were recovered and
returned to the forest.”

Prasenjeet said that when the flood happened, his mother was
not at home, and he and his father were eating at their neighbour’s house. The
flood came in two or three minutes. They escaped to higher land, and he left
his father there, and returned to save his neighbours.By Indira Avaz, all houses are now built on
higher land. But it is the Sundarbans, and the waters can come flooding their
homes anytime. On anti pollution, there are government instructions. They
cleaned the water with bleaching powder, and withhydrogen tablets for drinking purposes. In
this area, they have faced many hurricanes, but Ayla took them by surprise. They are building houses at a height,
trying to be better prepared. People help each other, regardless of caste,
religious affiliation and even political affiliation. The human recognition is
higher than other places. There was no knowncase of a person left abandoned. They were re-established in kin
groups.Two hundred families who left
Bali went to Calcutta, Azamgarh and Siliguri. One man from Poona married a
woman from Bali and set up a goatery.

The embankments have become weakened. After Ayla, when the embankments were low, the
repairs could not keep up with the rise in water. Since 1991,the water has risen by two feet. The people
are using NREGA to raise the embankment. Fishing and cultivation were the basic
occupation. There was no television, and no mobiles previously. With the low
wattage, they could not hope to have TV. There are 100 self help groups.

After the Ayla in
2009, there have been some achievements. Embankments, mangroves, ponds and the
primary health centre have been developed or promised. Roads have been
uplifted. River Embankment has been the greatest investment at 2.5 crores.
Since it can flood the population if neglected, the Embankments are of the
utmost importance. The water that comes from Nepal, and floods Bihar is sweet.
But the water that floods the Sundarbans is salty and the fish also get
killed.As for counseling, they are at
the mercy of Nature, since the storm was headed to Orissa, but it diverted to
Sundarbans in the last forty eight hours. People know that they live near the
sea, and they annually expect the flood, but the Ayla hasprovided them with
new levels of anticipation, of preparedness. Disaster Management funding has
focused mainly on Plantations, embankments and drainage. However Emergency Plan
is a necessity. There should be a classification of responsibilities with a
committee. Who will save women and children? Who will bring supplies? Is there
training as to how to proceed, if disaster strikes?

The Governments
programmes must each have a disaster rehabilitation component.The Deputy Magistrate is on 54 committees,
and the Chief Magistrate, Deputy Magistrate and Prime Minister are on every
committee and have no idea what it actually constitutes.

The Centre for Law and Governance team headed by Prof Amita
Singh were very clear in their response to the representatives of the West
Bengal representatives that the committees must act according to the Disaster
Management Act. The Response Fund must be given to the Panchayat for immediate
use, and the Mitigation Fund to be delivered accordingly. Sundarbans has ten
government employees, but none are trained. In Bali there is no Air Dropping
Funds that have been identified.

Forest Officer and Disaster Management expert, SenthilKumar, of IGNFAsaid about the significance of the mangroves
in Sundarbans

“Sundari is the name of the tree that predominated in
Sundarbans. It was forest before the settlement came into place. Freshwater and
seawater meet in in the soil. The trees are like spiders looking for food. The
roots are always submerged in the water. To breathe, they grow different
appendages as roots. They procreate where mature boughs fall off and take root.
It it’s high tide, they float off, and that’s where the forest office come in.
Desalination has to take place. So they (the trees) have to have a salt
factory, whichis situatedin the roots. There is always a fight between
water and land. The mangroves act as buffers. Whatever the situation, the
mangroves trap the silt, and create land. They are efficient in bio mass
production. They also detox river water before it reaches the sea. So clean
water goes to the sea. They are also safe fish nurseries. They are also a
reservoir for blue carbon. Ecotoursim is flourishing because of the tigers, and
it is the mangroves that protects the flora and fauna.The problem with tourism is that the allied
occupations can be disease producing. Prawn production and shifting cultivation
can foster diseases for the human population. Kiln industries such as brick
making can contribute to illegal felling. Embankments can create problems for
the forests, since the trees need normal sediments. The mix of sweet and salt
water is essential. Degradation is caused by the loss of this water.
Alternative livelihoods are fisheries, apiary and wood collection, all of which
are dependent on the mangroves. The major problem is that the sea levels are on
the rise. Mangroves are walking plants. They walk to the sea, or when the sea
is aggressive, the mangroves walk to the land.If there are lots of developmental activities the mangroves are unable
to walk towards land.

Eighty percent of the natural honey collection in India,
comes from the mangroves. Honey collection, with the loss of mangroves will be
depleted. The Sundarbans mangroves are beginning to lose their abilities, and
when the forest zone starts disappearing, then the animals move toward the
land. There are other difficulties too, as the saline tolerant wild rice has
become virtually extinct. The Green Revolution reduced these forms of bio
diversity. Like animals and humans, plants also become extinct. Some plants
which survive are called prototypes. Identification of these plants is essential.
Scientific community has to be alert to the decimation of mangroves. There has
to be attention focused on State Level Climate Change Action Plan.”

Prof Bhandarifrom
Jadavpur University says interdisciplinary studies are essential for
understanding the Sundarbans forest, which was cultivated since the 18th
century on its higher ground. According to him the damaged caused by Ayla in 2009 has shadowed the damages of
the 2004 Sunami, After Ayla stuck, it
was found that 40 percent of the embankments had not been repaired in 2015.
NREGA has played a great role, but the problem of salinity of water continues.
Mangrove and coconut plantations can help to solve the problem of land loss.
Sundarbans has a total of 580 self help groups. Sundarbans Development Department
has all the maps and figures dealing with Environmental changes, crop patterns
and land use. During high tide sediment deposits accumulate on the island.
Sweet water and salt water ratio is disturbed by the embankment. If we
displace people we cannot give them the same employment.The total length of
Sundarbans is 3250 kms of which 430 kms is very vulnerable. The local
people do not cut the forest because it is their protection.

Suresh Kumar, a civil servant said,

“Mitigation Fund is tobe set up by following the examples of Kerala and Bihar. The Pradhan is
the representative for the SDMA. Trawlers go out for five days at a tme, when
they see the cyclone, they cannot return in time. Early advance warning system
is required for their survival. Relief camps, maintenance, logistics cost the
government 400 crores annually. The government spent 900 crores post Ayla. Most of the money was spent on
agricultural subsidies. Unseasonal rains and the floods are the greatest
problem. 1000 crores have been spent on farmers to mitigate their distress.”

A.K Sinha reported that the Disaster Management department
works on an approved plan, so innovation and mitigation cannot be clubbed in
ledgers. Training, Mainstreaming and Mitigation mustgo together, where mitigation is proactive
and research oriented. The team is anxious that having insights from people and
administrators there should be a plan for all states put in place at the
earliest, which can be oriented to socialization of children in schools, a
disaster management plan for reporting and website access. And as P.K Joshi
argues, the new discourse is about environmental justice. Changematters.com
shows comparative data for degradation of ecosystems all over the universe. One
has to be alert about how pollutants and heavymetals from factory waste enters
into the Sundarbans delta.

The new practices of conservation which take deforestation
and degradation into account have to be sensitive to community needs before it
moves ahead with populist or tourist friendly practices. The only way to do
this is to engage in continuous comparative research and to draw in grassroots
intelligentsia. Nivedita P Haran suggests that there should be discussion of
issues at state level in the presence of SDMA , members and West Bengal representatives.
The enquiry committee needs to know the status of implementation of the DM Act
in every State, and the federal relation with the Centre. Are the associations
set up for disaster mitigation, are they functional, and what are the duties
and responsibilities of each individual. Does the State/statehave a map for risks and vulnerabilities. How
is the fund utilized? SDA Funds are divided in the ratio of 75% for the Centre
and 25% for the States. The Committee from JNUand interacting institutions were keen that the process of publicizing
the work of disaster preparedness should be made available to lay people all
over the country at the earliest.